Creature Within
by wintergreen825
Summary: The time loops were annoying to Harry, but not as much as knowing that he shouldn't be sensing anyone else's beyond his own.


**Legal Disclaimer:** I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

**Warning:** This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if that's you.

**Author's Note:** Sometimes in physics (and metaphysics), just one thing isn't enough to trigger a reaction. Sometimes it's a preponderance of things. Also, this has nothing to do with how much I wanted to make Harry a phoenix. I also have a bridge in London that I would like to sell you.

**Submitting Info:**  
**Stacked with:** Hogwarts (Term 11); MC4A  
**Individual Challenges:** Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Slytherin MC; Sett to Destroy; Creature People; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Short Jog; Yellow Ribbon (Y); Yellow Ribbon Redux (Y); Two Cakes!  
**House:** Hufflepuff  
**Assignment No.:** Term 11 – Assignment 03  
**Subject (Task No.):** Technomancy (Task#3: Use the dialogue "You!"/"Uh, yes, me.")  
**Other Hogwarts Challenges:** Romance Awareness [D21] (Timeloop)(Shimmer); Insane House Challenge [42] (Assuage); 365 [325] (Freak); Galleon (waving)  
**Space Address (Prompt): **Su Bingo [2B] (Lake)**  
Representation(s):** Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood/Blaise Zabini; Creature AU  
**Bonus Challenges: **In the Trench; Abandoned Ship; Most Human Bean; Second Verse (Trickster's Union; Lovely Coconuts; Three's Company; Unwanted Advice; Spinning Plates; Middle Name; Found Family; Nontraditional; Persistence Still; Not a Lamp); Chorus (Wind Beneath; No Touchy; Creature Feature; Unicorn; Larger than Life; Eternal Boredom; Tomorrow's Shade; Mouth of Babes; Peddling Pots; Machismo; Wabi Sabi)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges:** T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Ameliorate); LiCK (Narcissus); FR (Evolution; Satisfaction); O3 (n/a); HoSE (Schooner; Caprice)  
**Word Count:** 1201

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**Creature Within**  
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Time moved oddly at Hogwarts. Well, time moved oddly everywhere, and Harry knew that he wasn't supposed to talk about being able to tell when there were time loops nearby. _Everyone knew_ that people could only tell when time was looping when it was their time to meet their soulmate or when they were using special equipment. Being able to tell was something _freakish_, even among other witches and wizards.

But even then, time usually behaved. It had certain rules that it kept to in the Muggle world. It didn't seem inclined to do so at Hogwarts, or anywhere else that had a high concentration of magical beings and humans. Not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, Harry took to sneaking around to his reading about…well, _anything_ that he thought might help explain it. He would have loved to ask for help from his friends, but Ron hated studying with the same amount of passion that he loved Quidditch and Hermione tended to be fine with just whatever the books said.

That wouldn't help Harry figure out what was going on.

It also required Harry explaining what he was sensing, when _everyone knew_ that it was impossible.

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

As time went on, the loops kept getting more prominent, stretching out for longer periods of time. The time leading up to the First Task looped a total of twelve times before finally letting the Task to happen. To make matters even more stressful, the Task itself looped one hundred and eighty-three times. Harry had started to wonder if maybe his true destiny was not to meet his soulmate, but to be eaten by a dragon. Though to be fair, it had been nice to get to know the dragon mother he was supposed to sneak past, even as she grew increasingly irritated as time looped around her.

Turned out that all magical creatures could at least sense the looping of time, while most could remember the loops entirely. Also, dragons were excellent conversationists once you proved that you were worthy of being acknowledged. Knowing that his freakish ability wasn't just coming out of nowhere helped assuage his anxiety even as it whetted his curiosity.

Was his ability to sense the time loops related to the fact that he was a Parseltongue? Or did he have creature blood in his recent family true?

It all came to a head one day in his fifth year. He had been skipping rocks into the Black Lake when he felt the shimmer to the air that herald a time loop starting. He didn't bother looking around, even as the late afternoon turned into late morning again. He frowned at the dark waters of the lake. He hadn't realized that he had been out there for so long.

"You are not what I was expecting," came a drawling voice from behind him. Harry threw his next rock particularly hard, ignoring how much those words hurt. He had always been something other than what people was expecting him to be. At this point, Harry was more or else resigned to being the freak.

He had just hoped that his soulmate would be different.

"You shouldn't have phrased it like that, Blaise," Luna scolded. At the sound of her voice, Harry finally turned away from the lake. He had met Luna a few times, and her enthusiastic support had been as touching as it had been unnerving. Harry had _never_ had anyone so unabashedly care about his emotions before. "Hello, Harry Potter. What Blaise was trying to say is that we weren't expecting a human to be our soulmate. That makes things complicated."

"As if things weren't already," Blaise muttered loudly. Harry must have looked confused because Blaise focused on him. He gestured towards Luna with one dark hand. "Her mother was Veil-born and I've got creature heritage, on my mother's side." Blaise looked like he was going to be ill. "And you, Harry Potter, are _mortal_."

"Am I?' Harry asked without thinking about what he was saying. With one same sudden clarity that he got when he was in the middle of a Quidditch match or when danger was imminent, he started to connect things that he had never thought to do so before. Maybe it wasn't just dumb luck that he survived all his close calls. Maybe—and the possibility chilled him more than spring air around him did—maybe he hadn't survived at all. Maybe he had just _came back_ all those times. "How can anyone be absolutely sure?"

As the words left him, a wave of heat rolled through him as if answering what he had meant as a rhetorical question. The burning feeling made him toss his head back and close his eyes. It hurt, oh, god, yes, but at the same time, it felt like something he had been waiting for all his life. It felt _freeing_, like the first time he had dived on a broom—hell, the first time he had _flown_. He could almost feel the wind beating against him as he took to the air with a defiant cry.

He was fire. He was light. He was everything that burned against the cruelty that humans bound themselves with and _dared_ to call it justice. He was the rallying cry of rebels, the song of revolution that beat in the heart of those who would not be slaves again. He was the warmth of an embrace, the sweet lullaby that brought comfort to the frightened and hope to the despairing.

He had always enjoyed flying more than Quidditch, but that paled in comparison to soaring on his own wings. It was like the first breath he had taken after raising from the lake last year. It was learning that all the odd things in his childhood had been caused by magic, and not him being a nutter making stuff up.

He could have stayed up there forever.

But Luna waving her arms in the air captured his attention.

In the excitement of his transformation, he had forgotten that meeting his soulmates had been part of the trigger for it. He dove to them. As smoothly as if she had been doing it her whole life, Luna shifted to having one arm raised for him to land on. His sharp vision could see the slight tension in her body that meant she was braced for the impact. He pulled out of the dive, intent on landing as he had seen so many hawks and falcons do on telly shows over the years.

Unfortunately, his innate understanding of flight did not seem to translate to an innate understanding of landing. He hit her chest in a flurry of feathers and wings. No amount of bracing could have prevented their fall to the ground. Luckily, Blaise was there to catch Luna (armful of phoenix and all) before she fell completely.

The force of the impact caused Harry to transform back into his normal body.

"You!" Blaise sounded just as shocked as Harry felt.

"Uh, yes, _me,_" Harry agreed, still a bit dazed.

Luna was only the first to break into laughter. Blaise and Harry soon followed.


End file.
